Report 650
Report #650 Skillset: Astrology Skill: Constellation Org: Nihilists Status: Rejected Aug 2011 Furies' Decision: We do not believe such an upgrade is necessary and side with many of the player comments against this report. Problem: Currently Constellations, the Transcendant skill for Astrology, is of very limited use. It allows the astrologer to use two different ray attacks on their target for the cost of 1 power. These rays are only from astrological signs, and not from the nativity or planet alignment itself for the target. What this poses is a very limited pool of afflictions, always random, and very often the astrological signs have multiple alignments under the same sign, which means you do not know what affliction or attack may fire. (Example is, when you view the astrological signs for today you would see: volcano, antlers, dolphin,glacier, bumblebee, glacier, glacier. So if I used glacier as one of my signs, I would get randomly 1 of the 3 attacks.). Also considering the signs have to be different, I would not be able to use Glacier twice to try to hit my affliction of choice. All in all, the skill is very underused, especially for a transcendant skill, and can be made much more useful especially for it costing power at its level. Solution #1: Allow Planet Rays to be used, so the astrologer could use Tarox and Sidiak of the target's nativity for example and allow for two of the same sign to be used in the attack. Player Comments: ---on 8/7 @ 05:46 writes: I have no problem at all with the suggestion to enable Nativity rays to be used more (whether it be in the capacity of mixing a natiivty+sign ray together or two nativity rays), but the latter half of the problem is already a non-issue with the existence of Stellium, which enables one to hit a target with all the planets in a given sign. Unless I'm misunderstanding something, anyway. ---on 8/7 @ 20:50 writes: Stellium costs 2power to use the one sign, which is great when there are many planets in the same alignment, which would be better use than Constellation. Usually though, if say I'm trying to stick stupidity aeon, or even go for double aeon in that situation, it would not be possible. Being able to use the same sign allows for these types of attacks to be used. ---on 8/11 @ 15:11 writes: The whole point of Astrology is that it's very powerful only sometimes, and there are times when constellation is more useful than others... if you want reliable and dependable, go hexes. Astrology has a lot of very strong affliction combinations in it but this is mitigated by the fact that they're complicated to learn and not available all the time. Making the best affliction combinations more reliably available is a no-go for me, and certainly not keeping the power cost at 1p. I do not support this change. ---on 8/12 @ 12:59 writes: Stellium is the one where its powerful at certain times and it does have a higher power cost. Constellation though, which is the transcendant skill, is rarely ever used in a powerful way as it's way to limited. Being constricted to only using Signs that are aligned means you can never have a tactic built around the skill, nor can you expect to have any viable double affliction combinations. This is what we are requesting to be fixed. Astrology as a whole is based around it's fluxuation in being powerful and less than useful at times, but having the transcendant skill being so variable and weak so that it's rarely ever used is what we are looking to fix here. ---on 8/12 @ 20:43 writes: As I've noted before that I've no problems with making Nativity rays more open to be used, I must disagree with the notion that Constellation is hardly ever used. With ambiguous messages and a fast cast rate, sticking those afflictions currently available was very much doable and useful. ---on 8/14 @ 09:10 writes: From Placeus: I'm also unsure whether this change is really necessary. Constellation gives a few nice combinations if the planets are right. Does Solution 1 allow zodiac and planetary rays to be used together? If sun was in volcano and someone could constellation with sun/volcano it would be possible to double sun (or double aeon), which would be unbalanced. ---on 8/15 @ 23:50 writes: I can see the point there, as it is already 1 power to use, would it be acceptable to increase the power cost if the same attack was doubled up on? So say 2 power to use the same sign or planetary ray. 2 power for double aeon is not to strong, when the signs or planet is right. Also it can be limited to just signs or planetary rays. I'm open to other suggestions... I know some have said they see Constellations as useable, but from the the combatitive astrologers I know, it's not often used. ---on 8/15 @ 23:54 writes: Would this be more workable? : As solution 1, allow for Planetary Rays of a target's nativity to be used. If a planet is doubled up on (ie Moon/Moon), increase the power cost to 2, otherwise the attack remains 1 power. The Astrologer would not beable to use both a Planetary Ray and Sign in the same attack, it must be 2 signs or 2 planetary rays. ---on 8/18 @ 03:16 writes: I don't quite see the neccessity for this report. I'm sticking with Talan and Placeus c/o Inagin with this one.